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Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal 1st Edition

by
Ugo Mattei (Author)
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Ugo Mattei (Author), Laura Nader (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars 7 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 858-0000866599
ISBN-10: 1405178949
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 296 pages
  • Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (March 17, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1405178949
  • ISBN-13: 978-1405178945
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,066,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 starsPlunder: A Conceptual Key to Present Crises
By Robert H. Mclaughlin on November 25, 2008
Format: Paperback
In their new book, Nader and Mattei confront readers with a paradox. How could the rule of law be illegal? If this question leaves you puzzled, or gives you doubt about the conceptual rigor of a book that offers a socio-legal interpretation of plunder, you will find the arguments even more compelling and persuasive for having held an initial skepticism. Nader and Mattei show--with a gaze that is global in scope yet remains sensitive to the individual experiences of ordinary people--how laws may be used to support structural inequality, to restrict access to resources and capital by defining the status and circumstances of individuals according to patterns of exclusion, and to map citizenship across people and corporate entities alike, in an undifferentiated way that erodes the concept and the rights bearing quality essential to its meaning. The dual qualities of law to render justice and to mask injustice emerge from the careful, critical, and realistic thinking of the authors. In effect, they invite readers to see the world differently and to demand that people be "free to build their own economies."

As the authors tack between the politics of the current American presence in Iraq and those of the collapsed Enron Corporation, back historically to the colonial framing of contemporary capitalist economies, and forward to the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs that have used an invisible hand to choke the independence of judiciaries and legal processes, they describe a global climate and conditions of disaster that have, in recent months, revealed themselves in the dynamics of the American financial crisis.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Courageous Analysis!
By Dr Peppe on October 3, 2008
Format: Paperback
It's a "must", and it's highly readable. This provocative but lucid text defines "plunder" as the violent theft of economic and cultural resources by powerful (usually Western) actors that rape poorer and peripheral countries in the global arena. Popular wisdom about the purity of the Rule of Law is successfully challenged, and its relationship with Western interests of world domination is exposed.
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4.0 out of 5 starsPlunder
By J. D. Haskell on December 16, 2008
Format: Paperback
I'll admit, when I read the title of the book, I was hesitant with the book. To say the 'rule of law' is sometimes 'illegal' also suggests it holds some emancipatory potential whereas I'd be more prone to think that since the world is always juridical that law never offers any solution in itself - that the law always takes us outside itself for justification/action.

But this book is ultimately no simple project of recapturing international law's 'liberal' promises. Instead, through countless examples, Mattei and Nader's purpose seems, admirably, to try and reconnect us with the horrors of global inequality and remind us of the scandalous political character that so often lurks beneath seemingly benevolent / technocratic legal and economic manuevers. Ultimately the book lays its own foundation for future questions/programs about what must be done, what sort of program could we put forward to address 'plunder'.
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5.0 out of 5 starsthis book is a good tool. Recommended
By Miss Kitty on November 15, 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Pragmatic, measured, and clearly written. A textbook for one of my classes (Anthropology of Law at UC Berkeley).
If you're seeking data to bolster arguments about the decline of the legal state of the western world, this book is a good tool. Recommended.
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